We All Have Our Antelopes, So To Speak

First of all, our winners.

Jennifer – comment at 8:50pm on February 2
Karen S. – comment at 8:54pm on February 2
Kristen Gregory – comment at 12:30am on February 3
Kelly Brannan – comment at 8:21am on February 3
Karen – comment at 1:56pm on February 3

You should all have emails from me – and thanks so much, everybody, for the great response.

Second of all, some thoughts.

A few weeks ago David and I were waiting for church to start when the subject of Beth Moore’s Believing God came up. I don’t remember how it came up or why it came up, but I do remember that I said, “Oh my goodness – you know that I have such a special place in my heart for that Bible study.”

“Really?” David asked. “Why’s that?”

“Oh, don’t you remember?” I said. “It was one of the biggest growth spurts I’ve ever had in terms of faith. It made me realize how faithfully God pursued me – especially during the times when I figured that that He’d surely given up on me. And remember? Right after that was when we were sitting right down there” – and I pointed at the specific seats – “we were sitting right down there and we decided to host that neighborhood Bible study?”

Make no mistake, people. I was having A Moment of Earnest Reflection.

David smiled and sort of nodded and said, “Well, I think that’s great that it meant so much to you.”

And I could tell he didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was talking about.

About that time the person who makes our pre-service announcements was about to greet the congregation, but I couldn’t let it go. So I kept talking, but in sort of a whisper-scream.

“Remember?” I asked. “We decided to host that neighborhood Bible study? And we had four or five couples come over? And then our friend Elon started the neighborhood newsletter so we could try to draw more people? And she asked me to write a little column about parenting? And that made me start writing again?”

By that point D looked like I was trying to explain a physics equation in Greek.

“You really don’t remember, do you?” I whisper-yelled – and then I kind of punched his arm because DID I NOT MENTION WHAT A SPECIAL TIME THAT WAS IN MY LIFE?

“Yeah. I don’t have even the faintest recollection,” he said.

I sighed loudly.

About ten minutes later we were about halfway through the second song when D leaned over and said, I KID YOU NOT, “Hey. Was that the Bible study where that one guy came over and loved the fact that our dog liked to eat white bread?”

I mean, y’all. OF ALL THINGS. It was one of the sweetest times of spiritual growth IN MY WHOLE LIFE, and my husband’s take away from those few months was that a guy who came to the Bible study loved the fact THAT OUR DOG LIKED TO EAT WHITE BREAD?

Anyway, I stared at D for a good five seconds, and then we started to laugh because the whole thing was so predictable. I have memory upon memory etched onto my brain and my heart as a result of that particular time in our lives…and David’s memories pretty much boil down to NEIGHBOR, DOG, BREAD.

That’s real marriage, y’all.

I have thought about that conversation (and there was way more to it than that – I have mercifully only shared the short version) over and over the last couple of weeks, because I think that during the first four or five years that we were married, I would have taken great offense to the fact that D didn’t react or respond to that whole situation exactly like I did. Now, of course, I can recognize that it was because I’d convinced myself that we needed to be essentially the same person, and I cried MANY A TEAR in those early years because we didn’t see everything the exact same way.

But let me tell you what.

We have now been married sixteen years, and I can’t imagine where we’d be without our differences. I’m mercy; he’s justice. I’m overly trusting; he is SCARILY discerning (it’s not really scary – but it is CRAZY how accurate he is at reading people and certain environments). I’m all over the place; he manages his time better than anybody I know. I throw things together; he does things the right way. I’m all up in the gray; he is black and white. I’m blurred lines; he is boundaries.

And listen. I rarely write about my marriage because there has never been one time when David has said, “You know what? I think you should write about us more.” Plus, we are such a constant work in progress, and just as soon as I start to think that we’ve figured something out, we’re smack-dab in the middle of another lesson. But make no mistake: there is nobody – NOBODY – who has been more supportive of this whole blogging / writing thing than D has been. Y’all have no idea. He is the one who encourages me to carve out time, who makes our schedule work so that I can go to Starbucks with my laptop and not feel guilty, who looks after me to make sure that I’m not overcommitted on the calendar or stretched too thin on the mental / emotional front.

(Just a couple of weeks ago, in fact, we were talking through my calendar, and he said, “You know what? I think you’re all good until June. No more new stuff until June. You are gonna be a crazy person if you take on anything else.”)

(And you know what I said?)

(I said, “Okay.” And I felt SO RELIEVED.)

And all of that leads me to this.

It’s been almost two years since Melanie told me that she was going to write a book about marriage, and since she and I talk to each other A LOT about that very topic, I knew that any book she wrote would be hilarious. So last summer, when I read her first draft of The Antelope in the Living Room, I was not at all surprised by how much I laughed. I wasn’t surprised by the tears, either, because I know how much Melanie adores P. But I was a little bit surprised by my reaction at the end of the book, because more than anything else, my reaction was this:

OH. THANK GOODNESS.

Here’s why.

It’s a real book about real marriage, y’all. Not the marriage you think you’re going to have when you watch a Say Yes to the Dress marathon and can’t wait for the day when you look like a pretty princess. Not the marriage that you think you’re going to have when you read romance novels where people’s eyes meet across a room and they live with perpetual butterflies in their stomachs for the next forty years. And not the marriage you think you’re going to have when you’re watching some gorgeous famous couple talk about how things are just as white-hot between them as ever.

I don’t know. I just have A LOT OF THOUGHTS about how people’s expectations for marriage can be completely unrealistic. I mean, you may look like a pretty princess on your wedding day, but there will in fact come a point in your relationship when your husband sees you in the throes of a stomach bug. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THAT. And the perpetual butterflies are all fine and good, but I’m betting that they’ll disappear when your husband gives you a new vacuum for Christmas or decides to invite 25 people over for your birthday and YOU HAVE TO COOK FOR ALL OF THEM. And as for the white-hot attraction – well, you should know from the get-go that once a young’un or two arrives on the scene, you may have to find you a hotel room or take a vacation to rekindle that spark. AND THAT IS OKAY. Don’t you dare let our oversexed culture make you feel like you’ve got to be or act like somebody you’re not when you’re with your husband. But perhaps that is another topic for another time.

Some people might say that I’m way too realistic. But I think that finding a person who is steady and funny and loyal and kind – and being able to laugh and share life with that person – well, that’s better than just about anything I’ve seen in a romantic comedy. That doesn’t mean that our husbands won’t get on our dadgum nerves from time to time (and heaven knows that we’ll get on their nerves, too), but there’s something so wonderful about being content within that commitment. Melanie does such a phenomenal job of celebrating that, of reminding us that an “ordinary” marriage is something very special indeed.

So. The Antelope in the Living Room. It’s out at midnight tonight (February 4th is the release date) and just waiting to make you laugh really hard. And cry a little bit, too. You’re going to have such a blast reading it. You can find Antelope at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or at your local bookstores.

Enjoy every single bit of it, y’all!